Advances in material science have made possible the production of new materials with a wide variety of novel and desirable properties. These achievements, especially in the field of solid state devices such as semiconductors, depend on very precise control of composition. Crystals of silicon and gallium arsenide are "doped" with impurities at the part per million level or lower to attain the desired semiconductor properties. Obviously, the success of such work relies on the availability of starting materials; silicon, gallium, arsenic, etc. of extremely high purity. As new solid state materials are developed, there is an accompanying demand for various chemical elements in increasingly higher degrees of purity. For some of the less common elements, existing methods of purification may be inadequate in terms of the level of purity obtained or they may be tedious and inconvenient. One such element is the metal scandium, which has found minimal use in industry to date. The present state of the art, as described by L. A. Herchenroeder, et al., at the 17th Rare Earth Research Conference, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, June 9-12, 1986, although capable of delivering adequately pure scandium, is unrealistically complex. The process requires ion exchange chromatography on a strong cation exchanger at the impractical temperature of 96.degree. C. The process takes weeks, if not months, and the entire bank of ion exchange columns must be kept in a "hot room" throughout. The procedure of the instant invention eliminates the need for elevated temperature, permitting the purification of scandium to be carried out conveniently at room temperature.